


VA

by InfaWrit10



Category: Welcome to Hell - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Content Creation AU?, F/F, F/M, I've had this idea for about two years and I think I'm finally ready to write it, M/M, Mephistopheles is Memphis, let's go, voice actor au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-03
Updated: 2018-08-03
Packaged: 2019-06-21 05:13:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,823
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15550386
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InfaWrit10/pseuds/InfaWrit10
Summary: Inspired by the bloopers content and written for the W2H Big Bang of 2018, VA details the shenanigans of the Welcome to Hell characters as they work in the studio of Synergy Productions, and in their private lives.  Through stresses, romance, and a whole lot of bad puns, these wackos do their jobs well for once.Art is still in progress!





	VA

**Author's Note:**

> HOOOOO my gosh. Can't believe we finally got here folks but posting time has come, and here's my fic!
> 
> Illustrations are still underway due to complications, but I will definitely link the art and its artist once it's done!
> 
> Additionally, this story is being beta-d by the wonderful and talented Joseph Sheets (JSheets716)! He has such great ideas on how I can improve, and gives me such invaluable encouragement. He has rockin' stories, so if you somehow haven't already, go check him out.
> 
> Thank you to the Big Bang Moderators for setting all of this up! You worked really hard to put this project together and it was so much fun.
> 
> And, while I'm making a speech here, apparently, thank you to YOU for clicking the link! I hope you enjoy.

_All right. I’m early. Am I early?_

He was half an hour early.

_Okay… okay okay okay. Chill, Sock. Chill. He liked your demo, which is saying something, considering how terrible it was. I’m sure you’ll sound better live with better equipment, and people who know what they’re doing._

He took a deep breath.

He was standing in the overwhelming lobby of Synergy Productions, a company he’d been angling to get into for about a year and a half. Well, if your definition of angling includes nearly hyperventilating after sending in a demo reel with a prospective email, and waiting impatiently for a rejection email that never came, that is.

He actually, surprisingly, managed to calm himself a bit with his inner monologue, and focused on breathing normally as he surveyed the details of the lobby.

There had been no pictures of the lobby online, just of the booths. It was certainly… unconventional. It definitely didn’t fit how the lobby probably should have looked. The vaulted ceiling reminded him of a church, strangely enough, stretching so high above the floor that Sock had to crane his neck to see the point of connection. Tons of natural light flooded into the space, bouncing off of the typical office color scheme: gray, gray, gray, white.

Sock walked along the space, taking it all in.

The lobby branched off into four separate wings. Two on the right, two on the left. In the center sat a white desk.

Curious, Sock strode to the opening of the first wing on the right. There were a lot of doors crammed into the walls, and what looked like a doorless break room at the end of the hall, but no people that Sock could see. With his hands in his pockets and his eyes wide for details, it seemed like Sock was casing the place, but he figured that nobody would mind him looking around his potential workplace. He moved on to look into the hallway across the way, but it proved the same state as the first one he checked.

He spun around when he heard footfalls approaching from the opposite hallway.

The man's dark circles beneath his eyes were visible from where Sock was standing. Making his way towards the desk, it seemed like he didn’t even register that Sock was there. Sock couldn’t blame him; the guy looked out of it: disinterested, or maybe just exhausted. A baggy grey hoodie dulled his shape and signs of life, and gave off the vibe that he was absolutely fine camouflaging with the wallpaper. If not for the echoes of his footsteps and the shock of blonde hair atop a dark undercut, Sock probably wouldn't have noticed him.

Sock stared at him until he sat behind the desk, where he took to shuffling papers around. Sock nervously shuffled up to the desk. When the guy didn’t look up after a few seconds, Sock piped up, “Excuse me?”

Undercut shifted little more than his gaze, clearly not wanting the colorful distraction.

“Do you work here?” Sock knew it was a stupid question because he was behind the desk, but he figured he’d be remiss if he didn’t ask.

He nodded.

Sock wondered if he was a mute. “Do you know where I can find Memphis Hackman? I have an appointment with him in a few minutes.”

Blondie stared at him skeptically. “Name?”

It took Sock a few seconds to dispel the shock of hearing him speak. He had a nice voice, but the deepness of it almost didn’t suit him. Sock hadn’t expected him to speak at all, let alone have such a rich voice. Sock shook himself out of it, “Sorry?”

“What’s your name?” He asked slowly, and Sock was suddenly very aware of the man’s growing impatience, and was also very sure he was going to receive the status of “Idiot” in this guy’s mind.

“Sock Sowachowski.”

Blondie opened up a mac laptop on the desk that Sock hadn’t been aware of, and booted it up. “Spelled like how it sounds?”

“I guess so.”

Blondie created a second undercut in the form of a tired glare. Sock could read his thoughts: _You’re not helping me._

Sock figured he must be having a bad day… or he was just an unhappy person.

Blondie didn’t even look at him. “Wha’d you say your name was again?”

“Sowachowski.” Sock bit his lip. He was being thorough, Sock had to respect that.

Undercut’s eyes widened slightly as he whispered, “Son of a bitch, you do.” His eyes lifted again before he held up a finger telling Sock to wait. He pulled out a tiny microphone plugged in under the desk. That unexpected voice rang through the intercom system of the building. “Memphis, please come to the lobby at your earliest possible convenience, you have a visitor. Memphis, please come to the lobby at your earliest possible convenience.” He regarded Sock again, “He’ll be here in a sec.”

“Great, thanks.” Sock smiled at him, and that was all Blondie needed to get up and head for the hall on the left.

“You must be Sowachowski,” a confident Jersey accent resounded from behind him. Sock whirled around to face his potential employer, pasting a nervous smile in place of the one that had just fallen. He had his response in his throat before he was cut off, “Nah. Save your introduction for your audition.”

Taken aback, Sock didn’t have time to adjust to the conversation. He found himself fumbling with a response, “Ah, okay.”

Jerseyite stuck out his hand, “Memphis Hackman, good to meet you.”

“You as well, sir,” Sock thought he had, at least, handled _that_ part well.

“All right, so listen. I’m kinda busy with somethin’ at the moment so maybe—uh…” Memphis trailed off as his eyes darted frantically about the room, searching for a victim—“Mr. Combs! can possibly show you around for a minute or two in my absence.” Memphis paused for a moment, staring at the man who was trying to escape into the hall on the left. “If that’s all right with you, of course, Mr. Combs.” Memphis’s voice sounded like that of tonal blackmail.

Sock glanced over his shoulder to see “Mr. Combs” slowly releasing tension in his shoulders. Sock could feel him counting to ten. He turned and flatly said, “With pleasure.”

“Excellent! I’ll leave you to it.” And he was gone. Sock had never seen someone disappear so quickly, but he attributed that to Memphis’s ridiculously long, skinny legs.

Mr. Combs sighed heavily. “What are you?”

The question startled Sock probably more than it should have. “Wh-what?”

That “Idiot” signal popped up again in Sock’s head and Combs’s demeanor. “What are you applying to be here?”

“Oh,” Sock supposed he should have known that. “Voice actor.”

Blond-boy Combs looked vaguely surprised, like that small bit of disbelief was all he could manage before he lost interest. “Huh,” he simply said, and Sock had no idea what that meant. Combs shrugged before making his way to the hallway he’d initially come from on the right side. Sock followed him as he continued into the hallway. He stopped at the mouth of it. “We call this the V.A. Wing. I’m not really sure why because it’s less of a wing and more of a hallway? but whatever. Call it what you want.” He stopped again, halfway this time. Combs sighed again before explaining, “Most of the doors in this hallway lead to sound booths, except two.” He pointed to the door next to him right smack in the middle of the hallway. “This one’s Memphis’s office, and the lounge is at the end of the hall. Everyone uses that except the writers, who have their own lounge. But otherwise, you’ll see people from Animation and V.A. in there. It’s nothing exciting. Just like, a typical break room.” He leveled Sock with his deadened gaze once more. “Any questions?”

“Nope!”

“Cool.” He moved past him to head back where they came from. “Over here…” he stopped at a calendar Sock had missed on the way by. It was tacked on the wall near the mouth of the V.A. Wing. “Is the calendar.” He ran a pale finger down a particular day’s notes that read:

Bird  
B7  
9-10:30

“This’ll tell you the project name, the booth number, and how long the session’ll run. Any questions?”

“B would mean booth, correct?” Sock feared the Idiot signal.

“Yeah.” It appeared Combs thought that that wasn’t a stupid question.

“Cool.”

“Ah, there you two are!” Memphis’s voice boomed from behind them. Both spun to see him. “Ah, Combs, which booth is up to snuff?”

“None of them,” Blond-boy Combs flatly replied.

Memphis deflated a little bit, smile dropping immediately. “Which one works the best?”

“Twelve.”

“Why didn’t you say that the first time?”

“Because that’s not what you asked me.” It wasn't a disrespectful tone in his voice, just brutal honesty.

Memphis sighed very heavily. “Set it up, please?”

“Uh, I have a session right now. Do you want me to put Zack on it, or do you want him on this?”

Memphis thought of saying something, but Sock watched him stop himself after thinking better of it. “What is it?” he asked instead.

“Bird.”

Memphis was entirely confused. “...Bird?”

Combs shrugged, “It’s a passion project of one of the animators, I forget which one. There really aren’t a lotta lines.”

“Then pass it off to Zack.”

Blondie nodded and went to tell him.

“Use the intercom, I want you here,” Memphis called after him.

“Got it,” he called as he unhurriedly strode back to the desk.

In the meantime, Memphis steered Sock by his shoulder into a door with a golden, chipping ‘12’ on it.

The interior design in here was really pretty, sophisticated. Burgundy carpets and beige wallpaper with wood accents comprised the room before the booth itself. A gigantic muted gray soundboard took up more than half of the width of the room, only stopping just before the door into the booth. Sock thought it was fitting that the room was so small, considering the fact that they had so many other booths crammed into the same hallway.

Memphis rolled a dial next to a speaker above the door, something he could easily reach from his towering height.

_That must control the intercom. I hear Combs’s voice outside._

“Here, whyn’t ya let me take that?”

Sock had no idea what he meant for a moment. He followed his gaze to the manila folder that he’d brought and forgot he’d been holding this whole time. “Oh! Right, yeah, sorry.”

He handed it over, and Memphis didn’t miss a beat with handling him something else. “Take this. Look it over for four minutes. See what you can do with it.” He spun a pen from behind his ear around his fingers before offering it to Sock. “Feel free to write on it.”

Sock observed the sheet of paper. It was a monologue. He looked Memphis in the eye, hoping to whatever-God-if-there-was-one that he wouldn’t see the fear in his. “Yes sir.”

He briefly saw Memphis smirk. “Head on into the booth, kid.” Before he got in, however, Memphis commented on the lacking material of Sock’s manila folder, “You’re pretty green, Sowachowski.”

Sock, with his hand on the handle of the booth, said, “I don’t sound it, sir.”

Memphis studied him… “Good answer.”

Sock nodded politely and went to work memorizing and making marginal notes in the soundbooth.

The soundbooth was a little different from the room before it. It was narrow, but it was just as wide as the room that housed it. Black foam covered the walls, and the carpet was a sickly green color. There was a light wooden stool in the corner, and on it laid a pair of sleek black headphones. Spanning almost the entire length of the soundboard outside was a window streaked with thousands of fingerprints. Beside that window on the same wall was a silver button that Sock resisted the urge to press only by focusing on his work.

He couldn’t help how shaky his notes were. Four minutes was not a lot of time for a cold read, not a lot of time at all. Normally, it would be around five or ten minutes. It was the first time the actor would be seeing the material, and they had to memorize it and make it their own all within the time limit before they performed it. Four minutes seemed like a big ask to Sock.

But still. He’d made it this far, and he would do his best with what he had.

A knock came at the door to the booth all too quickly.

“Hey.”

 _Oh, Combs is back,_ Sock thought.

“Time’s up.”

 _Shit._ “Okay.” _Panic time._

“Relax,” Combs began. _Is it that obvious?_ _Or is he just saying that because he says that to everyone?_ Even though the comment threw Sock off, he, despite himself, felt a little calmer. “So on the right of the window, there’s a button. If you hit that, there’re shutters that’ll come down between Memphis and I, and you. Some of our V.A.s use them regularly because they’re self-conscious about how they look when they perform, but we mostly just use these for auditions. Hit that button before you start. Also—sorry, I should’ve started with this—the thing doesn’t need to be memorized.” _OH THANK GOD._ It must have been pretty plain as day as to what Sock was thinking, because he added, “Yeah, sorry about that.” With the door slightly ajar, the two could hear a dark, devious chuckle. Jonathan completely ignored it, uncaring of Memphis’s agenda. When he spoke, it sounded separate from what happened outside. “Uh… oh, so when you put the headphones on in a minute, you’re going to do a soundcheck for me. Just say a bunch of stuff until I tell you to stop. Okay, uh… I think that’s everything. Put on the headphones and just start talking about random crap when you’re ready.”

“Thanks,” Sock managed a smile.

The door shut, and Sock sidled to the button and pressed it. A metallic whirring sound occurred as the shutters came down. His eyes followed the silvery guards as they descended slowly into the slots on the bottom between the sheets of glass. Sock walked back over to the stool and stood before it, taking a moment to collect himself, to breathe. He slipped his hat off and tried not to think about how his future rode on how well he did.

_Breathe._

Inhale, exhale. Inhale, exhale. Inhale, exhale.

 _This is what you love to do. You do better when you don’t think. This is the_ only _job in the world where you can speak before you think._

He slipped on the headphones, the feeling of his cowlick bouncing up at the back making him cringe.

_Don’t think._

He stepped toward the mic.

_Don’t think._

“Sound check, start. Check, check, one, two. Lemme know when to stop talking.”

_Mind blank._

“You’re good.” Combs’s voice rang in Sock’s ears, “Whenever you’re ready.”

_There’s no one else here._

Sock took a breath with closed eyes, and found when he opened them, there was absolutely no one in the room with him.

_Okay._

“Hello, my name is Sock Sowachowski, and I will be performing _The Fed-Up Genie._ ”

The monologue went okay. Sock followed his notes, installing comedic timing where, in some places, it wasn’t necessary. He cursed a bit, as well. Nothing hardcore, but Sock hadn’t made notes about it, and that generally wasn’t his style. Overall though, he thought it was fine. He’d seemed confident, and distinct with his choices in delivery. He’d struggled with making his intentions clear in the past, so that minor accomplishment made him smile.

Once he’d finished, he thanked them.

And then, there was silence.

A click. Combs’s voice, “All right, put the headphones back on the stool, and come back out.”

Sock slipped the headphones off and traded them for his hat, feeling like he was back in his own skin as the afterwaves of his anxiety rushed out. _It’s out of my hands now, there’s nothing more I can do._

Once he was back out in the openness of the recording space, Sock had to physically bite his tongue to prevent himself from explaining away his choices.

“Good job, kid,” Memphis commended him.

While he might say that to everyone who auditioned for him, it gave Sock confidence, nonetheless. “Thank you.”

Memphis nodded toward the door. “Come with me to my office for minute. Let’s have a little chat.”

And Sock was scared again. “Sure.”

Memphis slung a lanky arm around his shoulders and led him out of B12. Sock caught a glance of Combs on his way out, and he called, “Thanks, Combs.”

Combs had that same kind diluted expression of surprise in the brief second Sock saw him.

As Memphis opened the door, Sock looked at the end of the hallway to see him give a quick thumb up before walking away.

Sock thought that was cool of him.

The click of the opening door drew Sock inside. The weighted door shut by itself, leaving Sock to take in just how bare the room was. There was a bookshelf holding scripts and books alike on the left wall, and a poster on the otherwise plain right wall. It detailed a water droplet splashing into a larger body of water, with the title “Serenity”. Beneath it read the caption “Unattainable”. A messy desk stood beside the far wall, piles of papers surrounding a Jurassic Era computer monitor.

“Have a seat, make yourself at home. Or don’t, you know, don’t let _me_ tell you what to do,” Memphis said, joking around. Sock could only vaguely hear it as he observed the room.

As Sock’s eyes landed on the desk, he saw Memphis taking a seat, and decided to sit across from him.

Memphis scanned him.

Sock got the oddest feeling—a feeling that made the hairs on the back of his neck stand confusedly on end—that Memphis knew absolutely everything about him just from the few professional emails they’d sent back and forth, and the once-over he just gave him.

“How well do you think you did, Sowachowski?”

He shrugged, “Not bad.” He had to restrain himself from explaining himself away again.

Memphis seemed intrigued by his response. “Not bad, eh?”

 _Is this a form of psychological torture?_ “Yeah. I mean, you liked it. And I, for the most part, liked it. So.” Despite his scrambled answer, he tried his best to sound confident with it. _Employers love confidence in your abilities,_ Sock reminded himself, quoting the book he’d read about how to be successful.

Memphis studied him amusedly for another moment. “How would you like to be a voice actor for Synergy Company, Sowachowski?”

Sock was blown away. He couldn’t help the way his voice excitedly, hopefully went up an octave with every word. “Wait… Really? Just like that?”

“Just like that. I do need to discuss terms with you, of course, but whaddaya say?”

Sock was entirely ready to shout “YES!”, but he stopped himself. All of the enthusiastic energy suddenly zapped out of him as he asked, “What’re the terms?”

Memphis chuckled. “I like you kid, I really do. You’re bright.”

Sock smiled, flattered.

“The terms are simple. Considering that you’ll be on our team officially and not just a freelance, we expect your loyalty. We renew contracts every two years, and if you want to leave the nest after these next two years, you are welcome to. But in that time, I want to oversee every project you do, and it should be under my roof. I get this policy’s a little weird, but… we’re a small company here. We need people returning to our page, we need more traffic. People tend to follow actors they like… you get where I’m going with this?”

While Sock thought that was a little odd, he understood. “Of course, sir. You want to gain returning traffic by using the likability of your actors.”

“Precisely,” Memphis grinned. “So! If you’re all right with that, then you should have no problems here. We’re fairly welcoming, I’d say.”

“I’m A-okay with that,” Sock told him.

“Fantastic.” Memphis reached under his desk and pulled out a contract, somehow completely pure of any wrinkles or tears. “Sign here, here, and here.”

Sock moved to sign, then stopped. “Do you want my actual name, or my actor name?” Sock feared an Idiot signal from him, mostly because it was a genuine question.

“Another man of many names, I see. Whichever you prefer.”

Sock signed ‘Sock Sowachowski’, and there was a rush of good feelings that bounced around inside him because he was able to sign that name on a legal document.

“You go by Sock?” Memphis questioned.

“You go by Memphis,” Sock innocently retorted.

Memphis laughed. “That I do, that I do. Please, call me Memphis, by the way. Mr. Hackman or _sir_ is… eh. It’s not my style.”

Sock smirked. “Sure thing, Memphis. Call me Sock.”

“All right Sowachowski, Sock it is. You start tomorrow at…” He stopped, unsure of himself, mind totally blank, from the looks of things. He suddenly snapped back into it, “Nine.”

“I’ll be here. Thank you so much for this opportunity.” Sock’s beaming smile almost overshadowed the hand he offered to Memphis as he stood.

He shook his hand in farewell. “No problem, Sock. See ya tomorrow.”

Hand on the door handle, Sock nodded, unable to contain his smile. “See ya tomorrow.”

He definitely looked like a satisfied lunatic on his way back through the V.A. Wing, his whole face a wide grin, his body tense with energy that he was _definitely_ going to use to happy dance in the driver's seat once he got to his car.

It fell only a little bit when he caught Combs rearranging some papers on the desk in the lobby. “Hey,” he called.

Combs didn’t look up.

“Hey,” Sock tried again.

That time, it registered that Sock was talking to him. His dull baby blues glanced up at Sock, the big dumb grin of a person he was.

“Do you prefer to be called by your last name, or is that just something he does?” Sock vaguely gestured into the V.A. Wing, more specifically to Memphis’s office.

He blinked. “It’s kinda just something he does.”

“What’s your first name?”

He looked like he was being interrogated. “Jonathan.”

“Do you want me to call you that?”

Jonathan shrugged, uncomfortable, “Whatever.”

“Right. See you tomorrow, Jonathan!”

On Sock’s way out, behind his back, Jonathan’s eyes narrowed and mouth fell open, completely dumbstruck that he’d gotten a job that fast. He blinked and turned back to his work with shocked acceptance.


End file.
